Native Bridge

[Sesshomurai]

Hi,
I'm working on a pet project and wanted to see if its something people find interesting enough that I will develop it fully and release it.

Basically, it _currently_ does the following, entirely asynchronously via callbacks to your app:

- Read/Write Local and temporary files on the client machine
- Get directory listings on client machine
- Perform HTTP POST/GET operations across domains and get the results
- Create native 'system tray' menus with callbacks into your javascript.

For example, to read a local disk file and POST to a URL:

                var quark = new Quark();

                // Non-blocking native operations
                quark.readLocalFile('/tmp/test.txt',function(data) {
                    // Callback containing the read file data
                    alert(data);
                });

                quark.postToUrl('http://someotherhost/post.php',{
                    'username':'user',
                    'passwd':'P123'
                },
                function(response) {
                        // POST response sent here when completed
                });

It can also prompt with the native Save As or Load dialog to browse the local file system and perform loads or saves.

It can do this WITHOUT a client-side installer and works across all platforms, Windows, Mac, Linux.

Useful? Redundant? Am I re-inventing the wheel?

thanks.

[Sesshomurai]

Also forgot to mention that it requires ExtJS, so its for ExtJS apps.

[tonedeaf]

It can do this WITHOUT a client-side installer and works across all platforms, Windows, Mac, Linux.

So, without a client side installer, it can do file operations? using a browser? How do you achieve that?

[Sesshomurai]

Digitally signed, trusted Java applet hidden in the page. Then JavaScript<->Applet. Works great.

I'm going to add a lot of useful features I think like:

- ftp
- media
- native app launching

What else?

The cool thing about my approach over Air and Google Gears, again, is no client installer. All secure through browser security model. And works same across all platforms. No need to re-compile Air app for different platforms. No C++, etc.

Seems to work so far.

[jheid]

Digitally signed, trusted Java applet hidden in the page. Then JavaScript<->Applet. Works great.

I'm going to add a lot of useful features I think like:

- ftp
- media
- native app launching

What else?

The cool thing about my approach over Air and Google Gears, again, is no client installer. All secure through browser security model. And works same across all platforms. No need to re-compile Air app for different platforms. No C++, etc.

Seems to work so far.

There are some things to mention. First of all, you have to have Java installed. Secondly, you have to trust the certificate owner (are you sure, everybody trusts you?). If you want to sign it yourself you have to buy a certificate which is IMHO expensive...

The desktop integration is good in Java but I think it's not that far as with Air.

[Sesshomurai]

Yes. You are right on those points. Java is installed with most browsers and OS's by default. At least moreso than installing Air or Gears which is never installed by default.

The act of trusting the Java applet is necessary. My company will produce the applet and get the appropriate Verisign/Thawte certs behind it. And its a good point to make.

Aside from that, the technique alone I think is better since it is sandbox security and not permanently installed on a users computer. So its good for distributing to users in a company, etc.

Thanks for the comments.

[jheid]

Aside from that, the technique alone I think is better since it is sandbox security and not permanently installed on a users computer. So its good for distributing to users in a company, etc.

There's no sandbox security with signed applets as you need to break out of the sandbox to get a native integration.

[mschwartz]

Can be done with flash. I think 99.999% of browsers have flash already installed.

Can do the javascript <-> flash thing.

[jheid]

Can be done with flash.

No. You can't use the native tray with the flash plugin.

I think 99.999% of browsers have flash already installed.

Definitely not Although it has many installation there are many old Flash installations (e.g. version 7) out there. If you look at the current HTML 5 discussions I think that Flash will loose in the future. But there are more Flash installations than Java installations, that's for sure.

[mschwartz]

All but the system tray can be done with flash.

I'd add the ability to do pure socket style communication as well.